As evidenced by British Patent Application 2,231,180, it is known to boot a first computer, connected to a second computer through a network, by loading a subsystem of the operating system into the memory of the first computer, the subsystem including the commands enabling file copying, the creation of a directory, disk formatting, and the operation of a connection through the network so that this first subsystem can then be used to transfer all the files of the operating system from the second computer to the disk of the first computer. This method has the disadvantage of requiring an initial loading of a subsystem of the operating system into the memory. A further disadvantage is that this method requires the presence of a magnetic peripheral, such as a hard disk or a diskette reader, in the first computer into which the operating system is to be loaded. Such a procedure is especially incompatible with remote booting of terminals, which must be done very fast.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,278 discloses a method for loading data or programs into a plurality of terminals. These terminals are not provided with a disk reader. Once a loading request is sent by one of the stations that has just been turned on, the server sends the first frame, waits for acknowledgement, and upon receiving the acknowledgement sends the subsequent frames. If some other terminal sends a loading request in the course of transmission of the frames corresponding to the loading of a first station, then the second station will take into account the frames sent to the first station, by noting in a table the fact that it is missing the first frames received by the first station. Each station must send its acknowledgement after the transmission of one frame. Once all the frames have been sent to the first station, the stations that logged onto the network later receive the first frames, which they had not initially received because they were connected after the first frame had been sent to the first station. In this method, it is the server that memorizes the number of the first frame that a second station in the network receives at the moment that station appears, and that at the end of loading the first station connected sends the other station the frames that it had not been able to receive. This method requires each station to send its own acknowledgement, which requires time to transmit the various acknowledgements for each station, to prevent collisions. This introduces a delay between the end of transmission of one frame and the transmission of the next frame. This delay must either be variable as a function of the number of the stations connected, or must be calculated to correspond to the maximum configuration.
However, this method and apparatus permit only a fixed kind of operation by a predetermined remote booting program that performs the loading of a fixed application once and for all.